Here, I post my reviews and document my love of opera. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment on any of my posts or contact me if you wish to.
Have a nice stay!
David Buchler
My original review of Rosenkavalier was sent on 21 December and there is no further addition to the production, but there are 2 significant changes to the cast, namely the new Marschallin of Rachel Willis-Sorensen and the Octavian of Anna Stephany.
What a supremely beautiful opera house in Wiesbaden. It is small (probably around 1,000 seats) with a great quality of sound. This opera is the second in the Ring Cycle, albeit was Wagner's third in order of conception. He had worked backwards from planning an opera about Siegfried's death and in doing so he needed another opera to tell of his conception.
What a glorious night of opera. Of course, the music to Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier is full of the grandest of liqueur. It was written in 1911 as one of the greatest of social comedies, with a reflective libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was first conducted at the Royal Opera House in 1913 by Thomas Beecham.
The original novel, Manon Lescaut, written by French author, Abbe Prevost, was banned upon publication in 1731. A similar treatment to the production by Jonathan Kent would not have gone amiss.
Alban Berg’s work Lulu is rarely performed. With Schoenberg as a teacher, the music from this second Viennese composer is 12 note music and atonal. The opera was left unfinished at Berg’s death in 1935 and the complete opera was not performed in its entirety until 1979 when the Paris Opera, under the baton of Pierre Boulez, brought the whole 3 acts to a wider audience.
This wonderful Offenbach opera had, as its original director in 1980, John Schlesinger. This brilliant production is still going, even if at this moment it is looking slightly tired. This is the last time...
